Searching For You
by arched-star
Summary: [One-shot] Two individuals search for each other from two different worlds


_**Searching for You**_

Everyday, she takes the same steps, does the same chores, goes to the same place.

Everyday, she opens her eyes to an empty room, cheered only by moving images of a young couple and some jolly friends.

Everyday, she takes a cold shower hoping to wash away not the accumulated dirt, but the accumulated pain.

Everyday, she cooks gourmet breakfast. She didn't know how to cook then, but she learned. She specifically mastered this meal.

Everyday, before the rest of the world moves, she goes to the white room of St. Mungo's. She visits him. She feeds him with her home-cooked meal. And there, there he would always happily anticipate her. Or at least, that is what she tells herself.

* * *

He suffers amnesia -the rarest of its kind in the Wizarding world, acquired only when a Cruciatus Curse is cast on a soul nearly stolen by a Dementor.

Despite re-introductions, and despite the treatments, he recognizes nobody – not the nurse, not the doctor, not his so-called friends, and not even his most frequent visitor - her.

* * *

Everyday, she gathers her strength before she sees him. Always she must be cheerful around him – that's what she says. She takes a deep breath before opening the door, cheerfully greeting him, best as she could.

Everyday, at exactly five minutes before sunlight invades his room, she would see him silently sitting on the white cushion beside the window, looking as though he's waiting for something, someone.

But not today.

Today, he was still in bed – eyes closed, body still.

She begins to worry, as this was not usual. He was always the early riser. Even back in Hogwarts, she noticed him to be among the first to come in the Great Hall for breakfast.

She quickly settles her basket of food on the table. Carefully, she approaches him, fearing of what she can possibly discover.

* * *

On many days she nearly gave up, but as though teasing her dwindling hope, on these days too did he give her a smile – the same smile he gave her prior to his proposal.

* * *

She takes a step closer. She holds his pale hand in hers. It's cold – but that was normal for him even then. 'Anemic, that's what he is,' she says.

* * *

Her hand too, was cold. Both their hands are cold and bare – naked to the royal embrace of simple thing that should have told everyone that they are one.

They never got married. The Great War came to its height a week before their wedding; the same time his memories were stolen.

He was saving her from the wrath of his father, the Death Eater.

* * *

Four hundred and fifteen days, yet she still feels the pain as tears clouded her sight.

Four hundred and fifteen days, since her name were last spoken. Four hundred and fifteen days, 'til she hears it again.

"I have looked for you in my dreams, Hermione." His eyes are still closed, but she feels the sincerity and the realness as he continues. "Finally, you've come. Thank you and Happy Birthday, my lucky star."

She is overwhelmed with the joy that he's finally well – he recognizes; he spoke to her; he called on to her, the way he used to. She hugs him, throwing all her emotions to the man she has decided to dedicate her whole life to. This has been the moment she waited for more than a year. Her day, nay, her year, is complete.

* * *

Every good has a bad. They say it's a cycle.

Then, it must be a cruelly unfair cycle for her.

* * *

The man in her arms opened his eyes. He's awake.

And, he doesn't recognize her.

The distant questioning look that had resided in his eyes for the past year is staring back at her.

"It was the unconscious mind speaking, and nothing more," the healer explained. "Do not keep your hopes up, Ms. Granger."

* * *

A temporary happiness to start her day; this was all she can get; on her birthday, nonetheless.

* * *

Tired of always trying to understand and comprehend the reason of such cruelty, she asks no questions. She wipes her tears and composes herself. She accepts the message as a person cursed with the Imperius Curse does.

'Two worlds – always living in two worlds.'

And so her day goes its usual routine – work, hospital, home. This has continued to be her routine as months and years passed. She would come before he wakes, for she knew that there in his dreams, in that place where the unconscious struggles to be free, he searches for her, and she for him.

_

* * *

__This ficlet is inspired by Pope John Paul II's words which had affected me so: "I have looked for you. Now you have come. And I thank you." _

_I know what he meant is different in context from the way I used it. But, as I said, the heartfelt words just inspired me._

_JPII, thank you and rest in peace._


End file.
